The Night the Lights Went Out in Florida
by New Decade
Summary: There is always one good moment shared, despite the bitterness of the future. Semi-CaKe with a dash of Hiphuggers post 8.21.


The result of boredom and a long week. Takes place one day after "Meltdown."

* * *

She was completely in her element as he starred at her through the transparent wall of glass; she wasn't even in the Firearm lab. Calleigh was simply twirling the fingerprint brush alongside a CD case, every movement careful and well constructed, being as delicate as she could with the twirling motion as to not smudge the latent print she was collecting. She didn't necessarily have to be with her guns to be the way Jake saw her now, she had the determined look in her eye, the quizzical stare he saw in all her work. All Calleigh had to do was be in the process of tracking down a killer and she would be home; just another one of the one million things he loved about her.

Jake took a step inside the Fingerprint lab, rattling his fingers the glass door in the process. Calleigh looked up as she began to run the print through AFIS, her angelic smile spreading across her face when she saw him.

"Hey," she greeted Jake, her voice enthusiastic as his memory served.

"Hi," Jake nodded, grinning himself as he certain pain came over his heart; this could be the last time he saw Calleigh again for years.

"I thought you would have been off to your next ATF location. There are a lot more diamonds to steal U.S," Calleigh smirked at yesterday's events, giving Jake a playful wink.

Jake chuckled and shook his head. "Not for me, I'm moving on to bigger and better things than guns and diamonds," Jake joked.

"Like?" Calleigh asked, her eyes darting to the processing screen and back for a moment.

Jake shrugged, guiltily, and Calleigh nodded in understanding.

"Right, that information is classified," Calleigh recited a line she had heard many a time.

"Afraid so," Jake sighed. "Any progress finding out who really stole those diamonds?"

"No," Calleigh shook her head. "Not yet, but we'll find out."

"I don't doubt it," Jake assured her as she drew her attention back to the computer. "But your boyfriend." The word rolled off his tongue in venom. "Seems to think that I had something to do with it."

Calleigh looked up at Jake and smiled.

"Well, you have an alibi," Calleigh reminded him

"Which he probably wasn't too happy about," Jake inferred, knowing Delko's envious nature. "You know he gets jealous."

"Like you used to got jealous of him when we were together?" Calleigh asked, raising a questioning eyebrow. Jake had always made comments about how _"I don't like the way Delko was looking at you today" _or _"He is always thinking about you" _and his tone would demonstrate the same jealousy Eric's had yesterday while questioning her about being "with Jake."

"Guess I had reason to be after all, uh?" Jake sighed, giving Calleigh a meaningful look. But the look held the past and what the future in crystal ball might have foreshadowed; Calleigh didn't want to go there.

"Why are you here, Jake?" Calleigh asked, her voice soft and to the point.

Jake shrugged. "I just wanted to thank you before I headed out."

"Thank me for what?" Calleigh questioned, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

"Driving me to the hospital yesterday," he clarified.

"No problem," Calleigh grinned.

"But I heard that you were in there last week because of your lungs again," Jake reported, the news of her being in the hospital twice due to her lungs in just over a year giving him cause to worry about her.

"And I was released hours later," Calleigh pointed out, wishing that the hospital could just be forgotten so everyone could stop be concerned about her, though it was becoming quite apparent that neither Eric, nor Jake, was going to stop.

"I'm just saying I would like to see you again, alive," Jake stated, holding his hands up in mock surrender.

"Likewise," Calleigh nodded. "So let's make a pact. You don't get yourself killed while undercover and I'll try to kick my pyromaniac habits and stay out of the hospital."

"Deal."

Calleigh smiled, but it was brief as AFIS finished processing.

"Crap," she murmured, taping more keys on the board.

"What's wrong?" Jake asked.

"AFIS didn't get a hit on the CD case," Calleigh explained. "I'm going to have to run the print through the elimination samples. Unfortunately, there was over fifty high school kids at that party, according to witnesses, and we only have about twenty of their prints."

Jake nodded, understanding the dilemma this put the investigation in, as he looked down at the CD case.

"Well, not many kids down here like country," Jake shrugged, referring to the fact there was a Reba McEntire case sitting in front of them, fingerprint dust covering the otherwise pristine surface. "Maybe if you ask around you can figure out whose CD it belongs to."

"Maybe," Calleigh agreed as the computer began processing the other samples.

The name of the artist brought back an old memory for Jake, a memory that had long since been forgotten, hidden away in the depths of his brain with no reason to resurface until now. The memory was the only souvenir he had of the "good old days" when things like work or other people got in their way, the least painful and most pleasurable time of his life, he couldn't resist chuckling about it.

"What?" Calleigh asked, curious by his spontaneous laughter, she was certain nothing humorous had been said by either of them.

Jake began to involuntarily walk around the table until he stood beside Calleigh, her closeness comforting in a way he didn't expect, he didn't realize how much he missed just _being _with Calleigh until he actually was…and about to be drawn away by ATF at any moment.

"I was just thinking about the end of our freshman year of college," Jake shrugged, innocently. "We had finished our exams and decided to go out."

Calleigh gave Jake a look of mock hatred, she knew the memory he was referring to and didn't want to relive it, but that didn't stop Jake from continuing with the tale.

"I remember it was karaoke night at the local bar and you got up and sang Reba's version of _'The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,'_" Jake smirked as a light crimson rose in Calleigh's ivory cheeks.

"In my defense, you had got three beers in my system," Calleigh pointed out. "And I had done well on my exams, I was in a good mood."

"Well, I'll give you your props, Cal," Jake sighed. "You did sound pretty good for being halfway drunk."

"Really?" Calleigh questioned, narrowing her eyes. "Because as I recall, you said that I sounded like nails on a chalkboard."

"I just simply mad because you had beat me on a couple of exams," Jake admitted.

"That's silly," Calleigh stated, shaking her head. "You ended up being the first in our class, remember?"

"I know, but you could have been if you hadn't gotten distracted by that boyfriend of yours," Jake shrugged, remembering the sarcastic term he had used when they reunited a few years back whilst he was referring to himself. But when Jake looked up, she wasn't paying attention to him, her eyes were following someone on the outer side of the glass wall. Jake followed her line of sight and instantly understood why he was no longer holding her attention.

"You got distracted by your boyfriend then, as you do now," Jake mumbled to himself as he dropped his eyes back to the table, knowing who she was now looking at.

Delko had been on the other side of the wall, he wasn't looking at Calleigh, merely walking down the hall as he and Horatio conversed about the current case, he assumed. However, Delko's eyes had traveled to Calleigh for a moment and they shared a stare, a stare that Jake had never wanted to see from Calleigh looking at another man. There had been a time she had looked at him with such devotion, such a passion…such love. Her green eyes never glowed like that towards him anymore, the fact all but shattered his reason for existence. The single look the two had shared was enough to make Jake want to leave and escape back into the depths of his alias and take on someone else's identity, the identity of one who wasn't real; you cannot feel pain if you never existed was Jake's logic.

Calleigh chuckled at herself, having losing all thought and control of her mind for a moment simply because her boyfriend had passed. She dropped her eyes from the glass and looked back in time to see the door to the Fingerprint lab closing and the back of Jake turning the corner before disappearing all together.

Calleigh shook her head, completely dumbfounded by Jake's dramatic exit and how, just like he had in the passed, completely vanished without an indication of a warning sign.


End file.
